Federal aid package offers relief to forest producers and exporters: innovation, new markets are industry's future.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Forestry

Ignore the noise.

That's what Derek Nighbor is taking away from his many conversations with federal bureaucrats and industry leaders concerning the ongoing softwood lumber dispute.

"We respond to what the U.S. does, not to what the U.S. says," said the CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada, in echoing an often repeated line from federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr.

"It's a fine line to being vigilant, monitoring and focusing on what we can control. We'll get whiplashed if we respond to every word that comes out of Washington these days."

Nighbor had high praise for Ottawa's $867-million package, announced June 1, to aid forest products exporters hit with U.S. countervailing duties of about 20 per cent, with a second antidumping duty expected to be imposed June 23.

During the last cross-border dispute in 2006, the Paul Martin government attempted to deliver relief but the damage to the industry from duties had already been done.

Nighbor, whose association helped shape the federal relief package, praised the Trudeau government for acting quickly with a "robust response."

The comprehensive aid program "checks of all the boxes" in making appropriate investments in the right places to help large and small mill operators, he said.

The program involves loans and loan guarantees from the Export Development Canada (EDC) and the Business Development Bank of Canada, which will be coordinated with provincial programs to backstop the wood products sector. Ontario's response has been a funding boost for forest access roads by $20 million.

Loans will be available to companies to diversify product lines, develop new overseas markets, help Indigenous communities and groups improve their participation in forestry, and extend work-sharing agreements from 38 to 76 weeks so as to minimize layoffs.

The details of the federal program and eligibility requirements will be rolled out by Export Development Canada over the next few weeks.

Through his conversations with the agency, Nighbor said EDC has formed a special internal team and is preparing to field calls and questions from mill owners on the program specifics and eligibility requirements.

As expected, the U.S. Lumber Coalition--the influential lobby group that triggered the initial countervailing duties in late April --called Ottawa's aid program another subsidy that "further tilts the trade scale in Canada's favor."

But Nighbor expressed confidence that the package is structured in such a...